How Merit is pushing boundaries of corporate engagement and rewards market

Julie Barbier-Leblan is a financial lawyer by training, who ventured into banking and then went back to being a corporate lawyer in France. It was a steep learning curve but through all those years of advising clients and structuring real estate and financing deals, one question always remained: what’s next?

The answer to that came when she moved to the UAE in 2010 and set up her first business venture. The rest, as they say, is history. Today, she runs Merit Incentives, whose revenue hit $64 million last year and has grown to have a presence in six countries.

“I think the motivation in the first seven years was learning. I said, I have to learn as much as possible in this short amount of time, so that I have an understanding of what I want to do and what's next for me,” Ms Barbier-Leblan, who is co-founder and group chief executive of the company, says. “And then the move to Dubai created the opportunity.”

As a mother of two very young children at the time of the UAE move, she found it extremely challenging to combine a demanding career with family life.

“I decided that becoming an entrepreneur will give me the flexibility … not to report to someone and explain why I'm handling a memo at 2am in the morning and not during the working hours,” she explains.

The desire to start her own business and be her own boss had always been in the back of her mind, even during the days at law firms in Paris and RBS International bank, where she honed her real estate securitisation and syndicated financing skills.

“When you are a finance lawyer, you work 12 to 15 hours a day, so [I thought] if I had to work that hard, then I need to work for myself,” she says.

First venture

But starting a business was not easy, and Ms Barbier-Leblan says she faced her fair share of troubles when she decided to launch her e-commerce platform in the UAE.

The first one, of course, was the lack of finances to set up a proper e-commerce company with all the inventory and logistical infrastructure. Tight finances forced her to redraw her business plans.

In 2011, she eventually launched Mylist, the first gift registry platform in the Mena region, which had the look and feel of an e-commerce platform, but with no inventory management attached to it.

The business, which is now part of the Merit Group, still thrives in markets including the Arab world’s two largest economies – Saudi Arabia and the UAE – as well as in Egypt, the most populous Arab country. It has more than 400 partner stores and over 500 local and international brands offering gifting solutions.

Merit Incentives is also a fruit of Mylist’s success and Ms Barbier-Leblan’s desire to keep evolving the business. The idea for Merit came from discussions with her international clients that sought help for rewards, incentives and customer loyalty or employee engagement programmes that have a global reach and have end users in the region.

“I remember very well the conversations, a lot of them were French, and I was like: ‘OK, we can help you, but it's really not our core business,’ and [at that time] we didn’t know if we really wanted to expand into the corporate world,” she says.

The company started building solutions for clients, including hiring a team of developers for digital gift cards offerings. It also explored local ecosystems and signed local banks, mobile operators and airlines and expanded with more international corporate clients.

“So, 2016 was the year where I said, ‘OK, let's properly set up Merit.’” she says. The business was later expanded to Egypt, Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait.

The same year Merit received inquiries from clients about application programme interfaces (APIs) and once that was provided, more requests came for platforms.

“We started to heavily build technology in a white label approach to be able to support all these requests,” she says, adding that the company’s success attracted interest from Saudi Arabia, where Merit now has its corporate headquarters.

What started as a business-to-customer gifting solution expanded to become a technology and consulting company that assists businesses to increase customer and employee engagement via a suite of cloud-based software as a service (SaaS) platforms, enterprise solutions, applications and custom software.

Merit is offering a diverse range of services to a portfolio of companies that includes financial institutions such as HSBC and Riyad Bank, telecoms giant Vodafone, Abu Dhabi’s sovereign investor Mubadala Investment Company, energy major Shell, and major global carriers Etihad Airways and Air France, according to its latest investor presentation.

“Mylist, I saw it as a niche, and I started to do it because as a customer, I wanted to have it. But Merit came from clients, listening carefully to clients and understanding where we were heading, especially with more mature markets,” Ms Barbier-Leblan says.

Funding plans

The company has grown to have corporate offices in Dubai, London, Riyadh, Kuwait, Cairo and Singapore. But, initially, Ms Barbier-Leblan says it was hard for her to raise funding as a “sole founder and a woman”, and it was very challenging to attract the attention of venture capital companies to raise growth financing.

The alternative approach she took was to get strategic investors on board in every market she entered.

She remained the sole founder of the company until 2021. The company’s group chief technology officer, Thrishan Padayachi, came on board as co-founder as the company moved on from its initial financing struggles and managed to close its series A funding round of $5 million in November 2021. This year, Merit secured $12 million in its pre-series B financing, led by Alistithmar Capital i-Cap.

Merit has seen significant growth in operations that grew by 12 times in the past three years. Ms Barbier-Leblan is already in talks with investors for a series B funding round of about $25 million and expects to close the deal before the end of this year.

Potential IPO

The company has already signed “massive contracts” and the new funding will be utilised in part to boost reach and then support the new phase of growth, she says.

A public listing of Merit is also on the cards to bring new investors on board and help further expansion into new markets.

“We got a lot of interest for an [initial public offering] in this region, because it's also something that the market is trying to do [have tech companies listing]. We are working on getting ready for that next phase,” she says.

It is, however, too soon to talk about the timeline for a potential public float or if the company will choose to list on a regional market or an international bourse, she says. “It's not the end game, but it's one of the milestones that you can hit. This is where we are, we are looking at it and we are exploring it.”

Q&A with Merit Incentives chief executive and co-founder Julie Barbier-Leblan

Who is your role model and what is your mantra for success?

My role models are the incredible women who raised me: my mother, grandmothers and great-grandmothers. They embodied resilience, empathy, compassion and humility, traits that have shaped who I am today. Their influence has been profound, teaching me the importance of staying grounded and understanding the value of people.

My mantra for success is simple: lead with empathy, learn from every challenge and never lose sight of the bigger picture. Success is not just about achieving goals but about the impact you leave on the people you encounter along the way.

Are you a risk-taker or a cautious entrepreneur?

I believe that to be a successful entrepreneur, you need to be a blend of both a risk-taker and a cautious strategist. The key is in knowing when to embrace each approach. I’m always focused on listening carefully, analysing situations, and taking data-driven decisions, but I also keep my eyes open to catch opportunities as they arise. It’s about balancing careful planning with the agility to take calculated risks when the moment is right.

What successful start-up do you wish you had started?

I admire many successful start-ups, but if I had to choose, I would say SpaceX, because it represents the perfect blend of ambition and cutting-edge technology. SpaceX is not just about space exploration – it is about pushing the boundaries of what is possible, disrupting traditional industries, and tackling some of humanity's most significant challenges. From reducing the cost of space travel to creating reusable rocket technology, the company has shown that bold, calculated risks can lead to unprecedented achievements.

As a tech entrepreneur, I resonate with the idea of using innovation to solve complex problems, and SpaceX is a prime example of that. It’s not just about financial success but about having a lasting impact by inspiring progress and showing that even the most audacious goals are achievable with the right team, vision and perseverance.

What new skills have you learnt in launching the company?

Launching the company has certainly taught me many skills. Patience – what we call “sabr” in Arabic – has been essential. It is more than just waiting; it’s about enduring challenges with resilience. This has been a guiding force for me, especially when things take time or don’t go exactly as expected.

The importance of delegation, trusting my team to lead in their areas of expertise, is something else I’ve learnt. One key lesson is that not everything will go as planned, but that’s where the balance between planning and an agile approach comes in. It’s important to embrace uncertainty and change rather than resist them. Both success and failure are critical learning opportunities, as each provides lessons that help us grow and improve.

What is one quality entrepreneurs should have?

Optimism. It fuels the belief in your vision, helping you stay focused on long-term goals even when the path gets tough. It gives you the energy to lead others through uncertainty and inspires your team to keep pushing forward. Being optimistic means you also see opportunities where others might see obstacles.

COMPANY PROFILE

● Company: Merit Incentives

● Started: 2016

● Founders: Julie Barbier-Leblan and Thrishan Padayachi

● Based: Headquartered in Saudi Arabia

● Industry: Technology/SaaS solutions

● Funding size: Series A $5 million, pre-series B $12 million

● Investors: Arzan, HP Oryx, Tech Invest, Impact46, i-Cap